


Intimacy

by etiquettedarling



Category: Hamilton - Miranda
Genre: Character Study, F/M, IDK guys is anyone really surprised I wrote this
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-23
Updated: 2016-02-23
Packaged: 2018-05-22 21:09:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 838
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6094093
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/etiquettedarling/pseuds/etiquettedarling
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>She was a beautiful girl in a red dress and he had felt like for a moment he could save her.</p><p>Maria Reynolds: A Character Study</p>
            </blockquote>





	Intimacy

**Author's Note:**

> Hey readers, I unsurprisingly have a lot of thoughts and feelings about Maria Reynolds most of them conflicting. I don't imagine this will be the last time I write about her. Enjoy.

Alexander’s brow always furrows as he sleeps. It’s not surprising to learn. A tiny bit of personal trivia in the grand scheme of things. But she knows it and keeps it tight to her chest.

It’s not really hers to know. It’s the kind of information his wife would sigh over, running a hand across his forehead and into his hair in the midst of a soft flannel morning.

She’s not his wife.

Some days that fact fills her with an ache so wide in her chest she’s surprised her rib cage can contain it. Tonight, she can only feel its absence. The ache is gone. It’s not a relief. It just makes her feel older. Tired in a way that she knows sleep won’t relieve.

Maria can allow herself to live for small moments. Tiny intimacies. It’s what kept her sane in her marriage to a degree. At first it was easier than focusing on the feeling of large hands gripping her forearms, the smell of whiskey, the stumble at her door as a man so much larger than herself crawled into her bed. She found herself able to pick a moment, her daughter gurgling out a laugh, the feeling of sun on her skin on a cool spring morning, and live in it.

Once, during the quick process of their courting, her husband had collected a small bundle of wild flowers and brought them to her. The memory of them, fragrant, comforting, a symbol of romance delivered in a way that she found easy to understand at 16, it had been one of those things that kept her going. During the worst of it there had been the smallest of affections to cling to. A kind word was still a kind word even if it was followed by those that weren’t.

A man to hold her is still a man to hold her if he’s dreaming of his wife.

It’s not often he’s asleep when she is not. Seeing him stationary for this long is always fascinating to her. Like sitting in the eye of a storm.

She can recognise a desperation in him but she’s not even sure what for. He clings and holds on too tight when they’re together now. So unlike the first time when he was tender and sweet and thought he could provide the briefest of sanctuaries to a helpless woman. Part of her misses it. Mostly she harbours a burning curiosity about what it is he hopes to claw from her as he slumps over her in bed. Does he hope if he grabs hard enough they’ll both forget what this matted tangle of human error and money really is?

It's not a thought she finds easy to remove from her mind.

It feels good to be with him. That's currently her only justification.

Next to her Alexander snuffles, grunts and rolls over, throwing an arm out so it extends out in front of him, draped over her waist. She in turn pulls one of her hands up softly gripping it around his upper arm and closes her eyes.

Living for small moments is all about remembering precise detail.

The feel of his breath on her face. The weight of his arm. The beautiful tactility that comes from touching another person and feeling them there beneath you even in the tiniest ways. She runs her thumb along his skin and exhales.

She does not think about him screaming demands in her face when her husband had contacted him. Doesn’t allow her mind to replay the sound of her own voice, begging him to stay. Does not grant the money she never even sees space in her mind.

She is singularly focussed on the feel of linen bed sheets and closeness of another person.

Alexander Hamilton.

He could be anyone really.

Anyone with means and a wife and sympathy.

Her husband had been very clear in explaining this to her.

She hates that this is something that she now knows to be true.

They have affection, a fondness for each other. Comfort to be found in almost familiarity. Sometimes she can even ignore how guilt punctuates their interactions. Sometimes she doesn’t even have to. 

And perhaps at the beginning when this started she had against her better judgement believed that it could only be him. Alexander. Man of honour. Who stayed because he understood her desperation, could sympathise with her plight, could see her beauty in a singular way that her husband could not. Now she’s certain that it’s not true.

She was a beautiful, pitiful girl in a red dress and he had felt like for a moment he could save her.

He could have been anyone, and yet…

His brow furrows further as he sleeps nestled in the linen sheets on the bed that he shares with his wife.

She can feel the ache begin to swell in her chest once more. Forcing a sharp exhale out of a choked up throat.

Tiny intimacies.

Maria Reynolds lives in them.


End file.
